


The Way You Look Tonight

by stardust_made



Series: The Jealousy Series [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 22:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_made/pseuds/stardust_made
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Five times John was jealous and one time he did something about it." John is faced with a devastatingly handsome flatmate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way You Look Tonight

  
John spent the better part of his last hour at the surgery unblocking the staff toilet.

He wouldn’t have been that phased about it, not after Afghanistan. But he felt justified to grumble against the timing. His afternoon had already included a patient’s daughter being sick all over him. The mother had come in with complaints about bad stomach aches—hers, not her daughters. The child’s minder had been unable to come at short notice, so mum had taken little Millicent—Who named their child Millicent in this day and age?—and brought her in with her. John was only trying to be the friendly Doctor; he’d lifted the little girl to settle her on the bed next to her mum, and that seemed to have prompted Millicent to show she wasn’t feeling top notch herself. Several seconds later John was grateful the stomachs of five-year old girls were really quite small. The close encounter with the blocked loo afterwards did not help. So all in all, coming home, John felt like a sheet of newspaper that a member of Sherlock’s homeless network had used for clothing and for cleaning of self. For about a week.

Judging by the view the sitting room revealed, John was also looking the exact opposite of his flatmate. Who was nothing short of immaculate, striking, devilishly handsome in his tux. And he’d done something to his hair so now it looked shinier and inexplicably aristocratic. John wished he had taken off his shoes before he walked in.

Sherlock was standing in front of the fireplace, looking at John expectantly.

“Erm,” John started with a flourish. “You’re…dressed up.”

Sherlock quickly glanced down at his attire, as if checking what he was wearing—if John didn’t know him better, he would have thought this uncharacteristic behaviour was a sign Sherlock was feeling nervous. There wasn’t even a tangible reply to John’s remark; definitely nothing teasing about pointing out the obvious. Sherlock just emitted some affirmative sound, hastily turned to the mirror, and began adjusting his bow tie. John realized he was continuing to stand still at the door like a straight wooden pole but coming near this Sherlock didn’t seem like such a good idea. John tried to sniff himself discreetly. He didn’t smell bad, but he didn’t smell particularly nice, either. Nothing like Sherlock’s sensual, smokey scent of ethereal oils—funny enough, their other name was volatile oils—a unique masculine scent that only an artist in perfumery could blend. Next to him John would smell like a common frog.

He felt his face pull a grimace. Perhaps he could just walk _around_ Sherlock, go straight to the bathroom, and have a shower. It would be rude, though. They didn’t do that. They were flatmates, friends—close friends. You didn’t just ignore your friend when you found him dressed like he was on a mission to knock the breath out of everyone he met on his way. On his way to _where_? That was the trouble; it wasn’t just manners that stopped John from abandoning ship. He was genuinely curious.

And if his belly was anything to go by, he seemed to be anxious, too. That—or he’d caught the bug from the mum and the girl.

Either way, he felt he had to say something. The silence was becoming too long and too awkward. Sherlock wasn’t helping at all. He was still fidgeting with his infernal, perfectly positioned bow tie, and he was avoiding John’s eyes completely. One good thing about it was that it allowed John to steal a longer look at him—only so that he could search for clues about Sherlock’s evening plans.

God, he looked good. This was expensive stuff of the extortionate kind—Sherlock’s suits were usually of good quality, but this was the Royal Collection. The tux’s material radiated luxury from across the room and the cut was extremely flattering to Sherlock’s lean frame. If there ever was an example of bespoke clothing, John was in its presence. As if silently providing the last piece of evidence Sherlock took off his jacket, blowing up his fringe off his forehead as he did. “Should open the window,” he muttered as he hung the jacket at the back of a chair, before turning back to the mirror. John was left to appreciate just how nicely…tailored the trousers were. Sherlock had a fit body; his movements betrayed the right balance between hardness and something softer, a supple quality. This was emphasised the most in Sherlock’s hips. They were narrow enough to be undoubtedly a man’s hips; the muscles in front and on the side flexed tightly when Sherlock sat, stood up, swivelled, ran—Oh, his whole body was one humming, taut line when he ran. John had often felt exhilarated just by watching him while he followed Sherlock behind.

But then there was Sherlock’s bottom. For a man, he had an indecently round bottom, the fed-on-milk-and-honey kind of bottom. John hadn’t watched it on purpose, naturally! But when you lived so closely with another person, you couldn’t help but notice things. On the occasions when Sherlock had sulked on the sofa with his back to John—John had learnt to just stay at home and ignore him, rather than seek refuge at other people’s homes—Sherlock’s backside had looked almost heavy, especially for such a lithe form. John had sometimes felt an urge to just march across the room and smack it, while it was in such ill-advised offer. Lightly, just to show Sherlock how insufferable he was being. Even now John could almost imagine the plush feel; the silky gown first, and underneath…

His next intake of breath produced a loud, wet sound—mortified, John shut his mouth, and his eyes jumped up to Sherlock’s face in the mirror. Oh, yes—and what had John expected? _Now_ Sherlock was meeting his eye. John panicked—retreat was becoming imperative, but with great effort he called on the remains of his military gravitas. He had seen death in the eye, dammit! He wasn’t going to run away just because some bloke had scrubbed up well.

John held Sherlock’s eyes defiantly.

“You off on a case?” he asked with his most casual voice.

Sherlock diverted his attention to the fireplace mantel, and for a moment appeared intent to clean it of every speck of dust.

“Um,” he started, “not so much, no.” His next sentence was barely intelligible. “Dinner out.”

John should have been glad for Sherlock, really. Sherlock never went out; he didn’t socialize at all. No cinema, pubs, football, gigs. And wasn’t John the one who had hinted all those months ago, when they’d just met, that it was normal for people to have other people in their lives, not arch enemies? There, Sherlock was going out now; probably on a date, what with the tux, and the hair, and the cologne. John could bet that Sherlock was so well-shaven, his skin was like a baby’s—so smooth that John’s fingers would irritate it. Definitely a date, and it had to be a bloke. John had heard the “not my area” answer to his question about a girlfriend, but he’d never managed to get the same clear negation about men.

So Sherlock was gay. It was a big revelation, yet John really wasn’t paying it its due attention—he was much too preoccupied with how wretched he was feeling that this wasn’t some sort of disguise for a case. He hadn’t realized how much he'd hoped for that explanation of Sherlock's appearance.

He tried to smile.

“Dinner? Good,” he said, nodding once, then paused, while his mind was pushing things out of the way to get to the basic social skills kit. “Somewhere nice?”

“Oh, I’m sure it’ll be resplendent.” Sherlock’s reply was a curious mix between irony and skittishness. John frowned. He noticed Sherlock hadn’t moved from his corner, either. Well, not quite the close friends after all, if this bizarre, discomfiting, charged situation here was anything to go by.

John's shoulders suddenly slumped and he felt drained. And a bit like that time when Poppy Stevenson told him she’d meet him in the shopping centre to go and buy Christmas presents together, but had never shown up. John had spent forty-five minutes cleaning his trainers earlier that day, and had five pounds for her present alone. He’d pretended he didn’t care much that she wasn’t there. At thirteen boys were not supposed to show they felt crushed.

John rubbed his eyes and squinted at Sherlock’s immobile figure. The light in the room was quite weak, really—they only ever switched on the lamps, not the ceiling light. John liked it that way, but now he wanted to look closely at Sherlock’s face, and he couldn’t. What he _could_ notice was that Sherlock was awfully quiet. John gave the smile another go.

“Sorry, I’m very tired.” That wasn’t a lie. “You have a nice evening.” John finally shuffled and almost felt his body creak. “And I’ll see you tomo—“

But before he managed to finish his sentence, Sherlock’s phone beeped loudly. Sherlock started and brought the phone to his face with almost comical panic, taking in the message at a glance. Then, wide-eyed and flustered, he looked at John.

“He’s here,” he said, voice urgent. John froze in a typical fight or flight lock. He wanted badly to see _him_ , but he also resented his very presence on their street. John nearly knocked Sherlock back with a punch, when he felt Sherlock crowd him—had the bloody man taken the space from his spot to John’s with one noiseless jump? He opened his mouth but Sherlock shook his head, curls bouncing frantically, and started talking in a harsh whisper.

“Please, don’t say anything! Don’t mock, don’t comment, just…don’t. He’d love that—I won’t hear the end of it.”

John’s jaw dropped. “Don’t mock—Who’d love what? Who’s coming?”

Sherlock stared at John imploringly—he was so close that their noses almost touched. He bit his bottom lip. John could hear the door downstairs open, followed by Mrs Hudson’s voice. He lifted his eyebrows all the way to his hairline, impatient questioning pouring out of his every pore. Sherlock’s expression became pained; he took a breath and opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and finally hissed, “Mycroft.”

John was wrong before— _now_ his jaw dropped.

“Mycroft? Why is Mycroft—” he started, but Sherlock grabbed him by his right arm and squeezed, whispering with renewed urgency.

“We’re going to dinner, and then to one of his clubs. We have a deal, a pact of—Once a year we dress up—well, I dress up, and we behave—I behave nicely, and all…brotherly.” Sherlock’s face contorted with condemnation. “I give him that and in exchange, I’m absolved from going to all family gatherings in the following three months. One year he picks the day, the next I do. It’s worth it, although it _is_ quite complicated to get people to marry in certain months, and sometimes he sabotages events just to spite me, but—He’s here! John, please!”

Sherlock released John’s arm with the over-emphasised motion of a cartoon character, then turned sharply to the door. It was just opening to reveal a man who wouldn’t have looked out of place in any Victorian book about the perfect gentleman.

“Good evening, Sherlock." Mycroft’s voice could open a sweet shop. "You look warm. Hello, John. Lovely to see you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Original entry at my Livejournal [over here](http://stardust-made.livejournal.com/35499.html).


End file.
